As in all spheres of institutional activity, voter education processes generate large quantities of documentation, ranging from published information to minutes of meetings, from paper correspondence to computer directories. It is essential, therefore, that an appropriate documentary record of these processes be preserved. Such a record will:
- support the institutional memory of the organisation,
- enable the organisation to demonstrate accountability,
- assist in ensuring that best practices and lessons learned are passed on appropriately,
- ensure that future projects do not have to start from scratch,
- contribute to broader social memory.
The term "appropriate documentary record" is used quite deliberately. Clearly no organisation can afford to keep all the documentation generated by it, nor would it want to obscure the really valuable material in an avalanche of ephemera. Information management is a huge field embracing a range of corporate processes and technological elements.
The fundamental prerequisites for success, however, can be summarized as follows:
First, adopt a flexible, implementable, and cost-effective information management policy. Assign workers explicit responsibilities in the management of information resources. Documentation should be managed in terms of systems that facilitate classification, retrieval and preservation. This is especially important in the sphere of electronic (computer) records. Adopt conventions around issues like how to deal with e-mail, what constitutes an organisational record (as opposed to personal record), shared directories, and classification and identification procedures. There should be clear guidelines on where specific categories of documentation are to be kept and who has access to them. There should be clarity on what needs to be kept only in the short-term and what needs to be kept indefinitely. For instance, policy might determine that staff personal files be kept for only three years after termination of service, but that two copies of each published information report will be preserved.
It is imperative that documentation which has been identified for preservation be managed systematically rather than in an ad hoc manner. Ideally, an institutional archive should be established, to be managed either internally or through an agreement with another institution specializing in archiving. Organisations are often governed in this regard by public archival legislation. The organisation should, of course, be conversant with all legislation with implications for the management of documentation. Archival legislation is just one category. There is also likely to be copyright legislation, legal deposit legislation, tax laws, and other legislation governing financial documentation, and freedom of information and protection of privacy.
